Every industry has them, in fact every town has them. Sadly some days you feel surrounded by them. I’m talking about the “unhappy ones”.
These are folks that wake up unhappy, spend all day trying to make others unhappy then go to bed unhappy. The next day they repeat the process. They are TOXIC. How sad it is!
I ran into one of these people yesterday. I don’t own my cleaning business anymore, so this was just a random interaction with “John Q Public”, not a customer of mine. I was out and about meeting some pleasant folks then I ran into this cursed soul wanting to moan and groan about life at my expense.
I engaged briefly then brushed him off, which just got him more angry. Then shortly after that I met the total opposite, a nice person. What a contrast! You go from meeting the the best, to the worst then back to the best.
But the chance meeting brought back memories of past customers who fit that “worst” description. I was bound to have these type customers every once in a while in my business, as we did countless individual jobs throughout the year.
From regular monthly contract accounts, to one-time jobs in real estate, retail and carpet cleaning our luck was bound to run out every once in a while. The weird dynamic is even if you have ten great customer interactions in a row, that one bad one can really stick with you.
I still remember this once account where it seemed like everyone who worked at this place was unhappy. The CEO was always upset about something, the people in the warehouse never spoke and this one manager always looked like he was ready to kill someone.
Well one day me and this manager come to a doorway and have to squeeze by each other and we both kind of zigged and zagged in the same direction. It brought a chuckle to me, as we did it several times in a row. He didn’t think it was funny though, as he screamed at me to “Get the (insert four letter word here) out of his way”. He was just nasty. I dreaded that account every time we went there.
Then one time we did a big carpet cleaning job at a real estate office and ran into a “buzz saw of unhappiness”. Whatever question we asked on the jobsite, questions that revolved around making life easier for them, were met with smirks, snide remarks and huffing and puffing. Had to bite my tongue a lot on that job. I enjoyed cashing their check though!
Anyway… I just wanted to get this bad experience off my chest, and share the fact to beginners out there this happens when you own a business. Don’t let it get you down! Most people are really nice, but some rotten apples are out there. Just work through the moment the best you can and sooner or later you’ll get back to meeting nice people again!